An amazing range of sounds comes out of this NYC-based band, led by percussionist and founding father Adam Pierce. Mice Parade is an anagram of his name.

Caroline Lufkin is the beautiful Okinawan-American singer who prominently portrays the feminine on most of the tracks on Mice Parade’s latest album, What It Means To Be Left-Handed (2010). The album is diverse, delicately sculpted, and every track is a unique experience.

You have to listen closely to understand lyrics, and sometimes I wish they’d speak up, but I guess being partially legible is part of the color they’re painting.

This one, “Kupanda,” can be enjoyed without one word being understood, mama way.

Song: KupandaArtist: Mice ParadeAlbum: This Is What It Means To Be Left-HandedLabel: FatCat RecordsBuy from: Amazon | iTunesWatch: YouTube

17 when she recorded her debut album Song Up In Her Head (2009), Sarah Jarosz is young, and fresh as the dew on a newly blossomed lily, glistening in the enchanted moonlight of a sweetly-scented Texas mid-summer night… and so on.

Here’s the title track of that debut, from a live recording from the 2010 Americana Music Festival in Nashville.

Enjoy.

Song: Song Up In Her HeadArtist: Sarah JaroszAlbum: Song Up In Her HeadLabel: Sugar HillBuy from: Amazon | iTunesWatch: YouTube

Do you have a tenacious, love-scarred, and constantly-beating chunk of muscle in your chest cavity, keeping you alive by pumping oxygenated liquid to miraculously-orchestrated body parts that are consequently energized by the infusion of said oxygenated liquid?